Category: News

Great Lakes Showcase 2014 Artworks for Sale

Artworks for SaleThe Visual and Performing Arts Department at Michigan Technological University welcomes you to the 2014 Great Lakes Showcase, an annual juried exhibition of fine art and craft. A community mainstay for over 35 years, the Showcase celebrates the vibrant artists who work and visit the Upper Peninsula and surrounding region. Thank you for helping to celebrate creativity in our community and beyond.

To purchase artworks online, visit the site:

Great Lakes Showcase—A Fine Arts and Crafts Exhibition: Artworks for Sale

Thank you for supporting Great Lakes Showcase artists! Once you purchase an artwork, it must remain on view for the duration of the exhibition. In addition, it must be picked up on April 1 between 8am and 8pm. Staff will be on hand that day to help you retrieve the artwork and sign it out. If you have questions please contact Sarah Fayen Scarlett at sfscarle@mtu.edu or (906) 487-2067.

Tony Orrico: Penwald Drawings/CARBON

Tony Orrico
Tony Orrico, /Vessel for Governing and Conception/ (2012). Photo by Juan Cano. Courtesy of the artist and MARSO.

Finlandia University Gallery Exhibit
February 27 to March 19

Thursday, February 27, 2014

ARTIST TALK
1:00-2:30 p.m
Finlandia’s Jutila Center
3rd Floor Chapel

OPENING RECEPTION
7:00-8:30 p.m
Finlandia University Gallery
Finnish American Heritage Center

Tony Orrico will present work from his Penwald Drawings and CARBON Series.

Penwald Drawings are a series of bilateral drawings in which Orrico explores the use of his body as a tool of measurement to inscribe geometries through movement.  He uses a physical practice, symmetry practice (circa 2005), as point of entry into this work.  In his termed “state of readiness”, he is interested in the application of a present body to a surface, object, or course.  His gestures derive from the limitation of (or spontaneous navigation within) the sphere of his outstretched arms.  Line density becomes record of his mental and physical sustain as he commits his focus to a greater concept of balance throughout extended durations of drawing. Centralizing on themes of cyclic motion and the generation and regeneration of material, the work draws on the tension between what is fleeting and what is captured.  The master of each drawing is a conceptual score of which he only produces eight times on paper in his lifetime.

In the CARBON series, body, graphite, plane, time and space combine to become powerful reflections on life cycles, energetic flows and complementary opposites. His repetitious movements, often leading to exhaustion, become deep metaphors about life and death simultaneously.

Tony Orrico has performed/exhibited his work in the US, Australia, Belgium, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. His visual work is in collection at The National Academy of Sciences (Washington DC) and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico City) as well as prominent private collections. He has recently been presented at SCAD: deFINE ART, Cranbrook Art Museum, New Museum, and Poptech 2011: The World Rebalancing.  In June he will perform Penwald: 2: 8 circles: 8 gestures at Center Pompidou-Metz.

As a former member of Trisha Brown Dance Company and Shen Wei Dance Arts, Orrico has graced such stages as the Sydney Opera House, Teatro La Fenice, New York State Theater, and Théâtre du Palais-Royal. He was also one of a select group of artists to re-perform the work of Marina Abramovic during her retrospective at MoMA.

Orrico will be collaborating on research and an exhibition with Finlandia University Gallery and the International School of Art & Design, along with Michigan Technological University’s Visual and Performing Arts and Computer Science Departments.  Students and faculty from both campuses will be involved as Orrico works in The Mind Music Machine (tri-M) Lab, an interdisciplinary research group based in Cognitive and Learning Sciences and Computer Science at Michigan Tech.

From Finlandia Future Gallery Exhibits.

Orrico Poster

Plummer Oversees Auditory Emoticon Project

GRC2014 Graduate Research Colloquium
Memorial Union Building Ballroom

Associate Professor Christopher Plummer co-advised a project entitled “Auditory Emoticons: Iterative Design and Acoustic Characteristics of Emotional Auditory Icons and Earcons,” which was presented at the colloquium on Wednesday, February 19, 2014. The work was co-authored by Jason Sterkenburg, a graduate student in Cognitive and Learning Sciences, and Assistant Professor Myounghoon Jeon in Cognitive and Learning Sciences.

View the Abstract Book

Pep Band at Heikinpäivä 2014

Hancock celebrates Heikinpäivä 2014 despite frigid weather

Undaunted by the sub-zero temperatures last Saturday, Jan. 25, Hancock celebrated its mid-winter festival, Heikinpäivä 2014, a celebration of Finnish American cultural heritage.

Image taken from video clip captioned:

“More characters from the Kalevala, Finnish Theme Committee members, Finlandia University students, members of the Keweenaw Nordic Ski Club, the Brrr Maids and the Michigan Tech Pep Band parade down Quincy Street in Hancock during Heikinpäivä 2014.”

Read more at Keweenaw Now, by Michele Bourdieu.

Libby Meyer at Heikinpäivä 2014

Libby MeyerHeikinpaiva to Feature Several Michigan Tech Faculty

Join several faculty members, including Pasi Lautala and Libby Meyer, at Heikinpaiva 2014 Saturday in Hancock. There will be music, dance, food, games, a parade, and the ever-popular Polar Bear Dive. Be sure to remind students that the Polar Bear Dive is back after a one-year hiatus, and they’re all welcome to show their UP mettle!

From Tech Today.

Saturday, January 25

10 a.m. – 3 p.m. — Tori Market, Finnish American Heritage Center & First United Methodist Church.
10 a.m. – 3 p.m. Family Fun Day — Vipukelkka (Whipsled), kicksleds, World’s Largest Kicksled, Finlandia’s Quincy Green.
11 a.m. – Parade, downtown Hancock. Line up at BRIDGE School at 10:30 a.m. Prizes.
Immediately following parade — Wife-carrying contest and kicksled races, Finlandia’sQuincy Green.

1 p.m— Finnish card making class, Finnish American Heritage Center, Hancock.
3 p.m. — Polar Bear Dive, Hancock waterfront.
Note: Official site TBD
6 p.m. — Seisovapöytä (Finnish buffet), Zion Lutheran Church, Hancock. Tickets $18.
Silent auction during the banquet.
8 p.m. — Heikinpäivä dance, Finnish American Heritage Center

From the Heikinpäivä 2014 schedule page.

KCACTF III Festival Award Recipients from Michigan Tech

Mason Pew
Mason Pew at KCACTF III Regional Festival 2014

The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) Region III (Illinois, Indian, Michigan, Wisconsin) held their regional festival at Saginaw Valley State University, Saginaw, MI, from January 7-11, 2014.

There were several award recipients from Michigan Tech this year.

The Gold Medallion For Excellence in Theatre Education:
M.C. Friedrich

Regional Design Projects, Sound Design
Recipient
DANIEL GRAYVOLD

Royal Hunt of the Sun

The Games of the Technological Olympiad, Team Event
Second Place
ERIK DOERING and STEVE GREEN

The Games of the Technological Olympiad, Team Event
First Place
KELVIN ROBESSON and DEVIN MILLER

Allied Design and Technologies Award
Recipient
AUSTIN ROY

Southern Nights

KCACTF Award for Theatrical Design Excellence, Lighting Design
Recipient
MASON PEW

Southern Nights: Unsung Songs of the Southern Nightingale

Get more festival details at the KCACTF III website and Michigan Tech Visual and Performing Arts on Facebook. Learn more about theatre at Michigan Tech.

Plummer Publishes Review and Collaborative Paper

Associate Professor Christopher Plummer (VPA) has had two works accepted for publication. One of them is co-authored by Assistant Professor Myounghoon Jeon (CLS). Plummer’s book review of Phillip Giddings’ text titled “Audio Systems Design and Installation” will be published in the January issue of the journal Theatre Design & Technology. A collaborative paper with Jeon and Jason Sterkenburg titled “Auditory Emoticons: Iterative Design and Acoustic Characteristics of Emotional Auditory Icons and Earcons” has been accepted for presentation at HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) International 2014 and for publication in the conference proceedings.

From Tech Today.